It's Time To Talk
by Dylan S. Thompson
Summary: Lily Evans confronts her best friend, Severus Snape, on something that he has always refused to talk about.
1. Default Chapter

Lily Evans was doing the most illegal thing she had ever done in her 15 years of life. She was sneaking out of her room at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and going to the Slytherin common room. And at one in the morning at that!

It would be no trouble for Lily to enter the Slytherin common room, even though she was a Gryffindor. Her boyfriend, James Potter, had been sneaking her in there since they had started going out, almost a year ago.

But Lily wasn't sneaking out to see her boyfriend, no matter how much James would've approved of that scenario. She was sneaking out to see her best friend, Severus Snape. She and Sev, as only Lily was allowed to call him, had been best friends since the train ride to Hogwarts before first year. James hated their friendship; he was always suspicious that Severus was trying to steal Lily away from him, no matter how often Lily told him otherwise. Because of this suspicion, coupled with Severus' biting wit, sarcasm, and knowledge of the dark arts, a bitter rivalry had developed between the two boys. To be sure, if James ever found out about Lily's nocturnal wanderings he would suspect the worst and probably break up with Lily and try to fight Severus.

"Power is everything," whispered Lily as the password to the Slytherin common room. Normally Lily wouldn't even think of doing such a thing as she was presently doing. The fear of being caught would be far too powerful. And, even if that wasn't a factor, Sev and James were roommates! It would be suicide for her relationship if James were to wake up when she was talking to Sev.

But, since Severus was the only Slytherin that had stayed for Christmas break, Lily thought it was safe.

Lily crept through the common room, lit only by a dying fire, towards the boys dorm. She quietly opened the door when she reached it.

Severus' bed was the furthest from the door, laid vertically from the back wall. Severus lay in the bed, propped up on a mountain of pillows. His wand lay next to his bed with his hand less that a foot away. Lily knew that he slept this way (propped up, facing the door, with his wand close by) in case anyone ever tried to abduct, or attack, him or his roommates. This mindset went along perfectly with his personal motto, "Be prepared for anything."

Lily personally thought that Sev was far too paranoid for a fifteen year old. And the fact that she was able to sneak in without him being woken told her that he wasn't as 'prepared' as he liked to pretend to be.

Lily made her way across the room and climbed into Severus' bed. Severus moaned at the intrusion and opened his eyes. H is eyes widened in shock when he saw who was lying beside him, but he quickly regained his composure.

"Hello Lily," Severus said in a sleepy voice. Severus put his arm around his friend and Lily pulled herself into his embrace. To the person that didn't know the two, this might seem like a very sexual act, but to them it wasn't. Severus and Lily both thought nothing of the position they were in. "Is there any specific reason that you're in my bed in the middle of the night? Not that I'm complaining or anything."

Lily propped herself up on her elbows and looked at Severus seriously. "It's time for you to talk to me."

"I talk to you all the time," Severus replied, a little confused.

"Yes, Sev, we do talk all the time. We have deep, meaningful conversations. You are, in fact, the best conversationalist I've ever met. But, in all the years we've known each other, you've never once mentioned your past or your family. And it's not that you just don't mention that, you purposely avoid talking about it."

Severus sighed audibly, slipped out from under Lily, and stood up. "Why the fuck are you so goddamned curious about my family and my past?"

_He's nervous,_ thought Lily, _he always swears when he's nervous or angry. He doesn't seem angry though, he's not yelling or making sarcastic comments._ Lily stood up also and faced Sev, hands on her hips and eyes burning with determination. She WOULD get what she wanted.

"This is exactly what I'm talking about, Sev! Every time I bring up your family OR your past you shoot me down!" Lily paused to take a breath. "Sev, I consider you my best friend, but when you avoid something like this, you make me think that you don't think I'm your best friend. I am your best friend, aren't I?"

Severus stood, with his head down, staring silently at the floor. After a few seconds of nonresponsivness that terrified Lily, Severus nodded.

Lily let out a relieved breath and said, "Best friends don't keep secrets. I've told you everything that has happened in my life, from the time Petunia held my head down in mud until I was sure I would die to the time a drunken James puked all over me and passed out while we were making out. Now it's your turn."

For a few seconds after Lily's speech, Severus stayed silent and stood in the same position he was in earlier. Finally he looked up, straight into Lily's eyes. "Fine," said Severus in a cold, malicious voice that Lily had previously only heard directed at his enemies, "you want to hear my story? Hear of my family? You want to hear of my childhood? Well, sit down, dear friend, because it's not going to be what you expected to hear."

A/N: This is the first story in my massive Lily/Sev series that I plan to do. Lily/Sev is by far my favorite pairing. Oh, and I put James in Slytherin because of a really good, logical theory I heard once. Maybe if people read and review this I'll tell you the reasons.

A/N (Updated): It's been nearly three years since I posted this, and it's now official canon that James was in Gryffindor. I thought of changing it, but decided against it in the end. Besides, the theory still makes sense to me, even if it's not true according to J.K.


	2. My Past

A/N: The reason why I put James in Slytherin is because of this theory: In the first book Hagrid says that every wizard that ever went bad came from Slytherin. At the time, it was thought that Sirius Black had gone bad. Therefore, following from that statement, Sirius Black would have to be in Slytherin. Now, Sirius and James were best friends, so I just assumed that best friends would be in the same house. Ok, here's the second chapter of "It's Time to Talk." This entire chapter will be Severus telling his past to Lily. The style's kind of weird.

My mother's name was Anne Snape, and she was eighteen when she became pregnant with me. She was a Londoner by birth, but because of her job as a traveling healer, she found herself in a small village deep in the Ger man countryside. Upon arriving there, she presented herself to the local doctor, offering her talents, just as she always did. And the doctor appreciatively accepted her help, just as they always did. My mother didn't always go to wizard doctors, either. She was also a highly trained muggle nurse, and she was able to work fine in either habitats. This particular doctor in the heart of Germany, was a muggle.

Usually my mother would help out for a couple of weeks, then she would say goodbye and go on her way. This situation, however, turned out differently than all the others. My mother and the doctor fell in love, and I am a result of that love. When my mother and the doctor learned of the pregnancy, they immediately started planning on getting married. My mother, however, made one mistake. She told the doctor that she was a witch. The doctor was a very religious man, and believed witches were evil. So, he decided it was absolutely necessary that he get drunk and beat my mother until she was almost dead.

And, when she tried to report what he did to the police they flat out refused to believe her. The doctor was one of the most respected individuals in the town, and they said he wasn't capable of doing such a thing.

Fearing for her safety, my mother began to make her way back to London. When she left the town she was seven months pregnant, and most of the journey was on foot. She had no money so he had to beg for food as she went on her way. The only time she wasn't on foot during her journey back home was the ferry across the channel. When she finally arrived back in London she was nine months along, and, a few days after her arrival, she went into labor.

Not to get into the details, but my mother died during labor and the doctor was just barely able to save me from dying as well. Once I was officially saved, however, the doctor was faced with another problem. The doctor looked in London for any family of my mother's, but her last relative had died while she was still at Hogwarts. So, I was an orphan, and I had to go to the orphanage. However, I didn't have a name, and the orphanage wouldn't take me until I had a name. The doctor knew my last name was Snape from my mother's check-in papers, but he had no idea what my first name should be. The doctor searched his mind for a name, but none seemed to suit me. Finally, one day about three days after I was born, he overheard two nurses talking. One said to the other, "I pity that poor child. Life is very severe for an orphan in this city." Hearing this, a light went off in the good doctor's mind and he named me Severus; Latin for 'severe'.

2.

Now that I had a name, the hospital had to give me up. So, I was sent to the London Institute for Orphaned Children, and I only had two objects to my name; My mother's diary (which is how I know this story) and the doctor's notes about my birth and naming.

I spent seven horrible years at that damn orphanage. Let me tell you something: if you think rivalries are vicious here at Hogwarts, then you are sadly mistaken. Compared to the orphanage, Hogwarts' rivalries are happy little tea parties. At the orphanage life was one massive power struggle between the older boys. And they used the little kids as pawns…or as battlegrounds.

The end result was a lot of children in pain.

I was subjected to beatings regularly, both from older boys and from the staff. However, unlike my other contemporaries, I decided to take a stand. My first course of action was to report everything to the owner of the orphanage, but he didn't care. The owner in my time at the orphanage didn't give a damn about children. He was stuck with the orphanage when his wife (the true humanitarian) died. All he was concerned about was keeping open so the tax dollars kept rolling in. As long as the older kids didn't leave any visible marks for any inspectors to see, he didn't care.

That's when I decided to defend myself. But that wasn't enough; I had to put an end to this treatment once and for all. So, I got together all the kids that were seven through twelve, and I even got a few of the decent teenagers to join us. Because they weren't all terrible; it's just that the decent ones didn't last very long in the orphanage.

Anyway, so we all got together one night and put a stop to the older guys' activities. Even though we were smaller and weaker than them, the dozen or so older kids were nothing compared to the whole lot of us. Especially since we took them out one at a time. I made sure to personally add just one more finishing touch that would be with them for the rest of their lives, but I won't tell you about that tonight. I don't think your could handle it.

I can tell by the look on your face that you don't completely believe me. You don't believe such a young kid would be capable of participating in (much less organizing) such a thing. But, when you grow up in an environment like the orphanage, you grow up a lot faster than in the real world. A hell of a lot faster. And, like I said earlier, decency doesn't last very long there. If you want to survive long in the orphanage you learn to forget morals and what's decent or not.

The day after 'The Great Counterstrike', as I like to call it, most of the older boys went to the owner of the orphanage to report what happened. And we would've been punished severely, because we didn't try to keep our beatings invisible. We wanted everybody to see what happened to them. We were all punished, more severely than even before. But it was worth it. A week after all of this, Marie Maddon came to the orphanage and adopted me.

3.

Marie and my mother had been best friends while at Hogwarts. They had practically been joined at the hip. They had even joined the same vocation. The day they graduated, Marie and my mother promised that they would travel the globe healing people for ten years before coming back to Diagon Alley and opening a practice there.

Unlike my mother, Marie was able to finish her ten years of travel, and she returned to London anxious to be reunited with her friend. When she got back to London, and to her family, the only news they had about her dear friend they had been that she died giving birth. When she found out where I had ended up, she immediately went to the orphanage and adopted me.

Then she took me and moved to Diagon Alley. However, she didn't start a mediwitch practice. She said that that was a shared dream, and she had no right starting one without my mother. So she took a job as a waitress at the Leaky Cauldron instead. Along with such a job came a free room to stay in upstairs.

My years with Marie were the happiest of my life. I became the surrogate son of every shopkeeper in the Alley, and, because of that, I practically had the entire Alley to use at my whim. Not that I could take a broomstick or anything, but if I wanted an ice cream I got one free of charge. If I wanted a butterbeer, I got one. You get the idea. But what was most important to me was Florish and Blotts. I used that place like a library. I would spend most of my day there, reading, and, when it came time for me to go, I was allowed to take a book or two with me. I had read practically every book in the place by the time I went to Hogwarts.

Yes, those were the best times of my life. But, it is my firm belief that all good things must come to an end. Which is what happened a month before I got my Hogwarts letter.

Now, as a waitress, Marie had to deal with wizards hitting on her all the time. Almost all of those men were harmless, and Marie could easily deal with them herself. But a few weren't harmless, and Tom would have them thrown out.

One night, however, a man who was thrown out didn't quietly slink into the night. He was waiting for Marie after she got off work and was on her way to get me at Florish and Blotts. And, well, he found her, and I became an orphan again. I realized then that a wizard doesn't have to try to rule the world like Grindelwald, or even be one of his lackeys, to be evil.

There are a number of very evil wizards and witches that walk the streets that weren't in Slytherin and couldn't perform a Dark Arts spell to save their lives. That's a fact that a lot of witches and wizards take for granted.

After Marie was killed, there was brief talk of sending me back to the orphanage, but I quickly talked that down. However, reasoned Tom, I couldn't just keep living at the Cauldron for free. So I offered to work for him, with my pay being a free room. I worked as a waiter and dishwasher for the rest of the summer before I left for Hogwarts, and I've worked for Tom every summer since.

Once my Hogwarts letter arrived, I was devastated. I had no money, so I was convinced that I wouldn't be able to go. However, I soon learned that, before she died, Marie had saved enough money to put me through three years of Hogwarts. I still had to pay for the remaining four years, though. So I began doing odd jobs around the Alley. Jobs that most wizards found too tedious. I organized books at Florish and Blotts; I arranged broomsticks first by make, then by size; I would clean out Ice Cream machines or mop the floor at Gringotts. Basically I did anything and everything. When I got to school, I still didn't stop working. I tutored anyone that needed it, and I, well, you already know what else I did.

By doing all of that, I made enough money to pay my way through Hogwarts by my second year. However, I didn't stop. I mean, why stop and lose all the incoming money?

Anyways, on the train ride to Hogwarts in my first year, this wonderful, beautiful girl popped her head into my compartment to ask if anyone was sitting there. And this girl became by best friend. But I was afraid to tell her of my past because I didn't want her pity. Then, five years after we met, she confronted me about it. And, to my utter surprise, it was a relief to finally tell it.

THE END


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